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I am a 27 year old social worker and doctoral student working on improving my fitness. This blogs is a place for me to write about my experiences with fitness and fitness communities as a fat , feminist woman with disabilities. Sometimes things might go off the topic of fitness but that is the general theme.

One things I’ve gotten to discover first hand is the real benefit of compound movements. I know, this is something you hear a lot about in the lifting world on why free weights are better than machines, and it’s something I was aware of on a theoretical basis before but I understand it in terms of experience now.

While my foot was still healing and I needed to stay off it I discovered that while the gym I go to closest to me didn’t have any seated leg machines, one (in the same chain) a bit further away did. So I would sometimes go further away to that gym so I could do a seated hamstring curl and leg extension. Even staying off my foot I could work my legs some.

And surely this would help make it easier to transition back to lifts using my legs, like squats, after my foot was healed, right?

NOPE!

I still can barely manage squatting, even a few weeks back at it now. Trying to squat after so long without, my body completely forgot how to do that movement. Sure, the leg extension and hamstring curl helped build back some muscle on my legs, but muscle from those isolation movements did not translate well over to the functional movement of squatting- my muscles (all of them in conjunction) were not used to this movement.

Last night at the gym I for the first time since my break from lifting threw in a metabolic complex and it kicked my ass! I hate these. My comfort zone for workouts are heavy lifts with long rests between. The kind of stuff that builds muscle and leaves me sweating, but doesn’t really get my heart rate up for any sustained period of time. I also like swimming and HIIT cardio style workouts (sprints and such). But cardio HIIT workouts do not kick my ass as much as a barbell complex. I absolutely hate these when doing them, they feel miserable. And I realize I need to make more of an effort to do them more often. Because if I only stick with the stuff I find easiest or most enjoyable, I will be missing out. Sure, even if I only do a low intensity swimming several times a week I would have health benefits from that. But lifting and adding in some stuff that is a struggle and gets my heart rate going a lot more provides other forms of health benefits that are missed by sticking with just one style of workout. Aside from health benefits, it provides a different type of training benefit that other stuff doesn’t, and I’m missing out on performance if i skip it.

It helps though that I love how I feel AFTER it’s over though. And it doesn’t last very long. Not sure something like running a marathon is ever in my future. Much as I hate steady state cardio, not sure I could put up with it for such a long period of time.

Still trying to get into a groove of workouts though. It feels like a lot to fit into a schedule.

My goal is 3-4 days of lifting per week (each session taking 30-60 minutes usually), Krav Maga at least 1 day per week (fitting class times into my schedule is difficult or I’d aim for more often. Classes are 1 hr long if I remember correctly.), 1-2 complexes per week (so that adds 15-30 minutes, usually do these at the end of a lifting workout), and swimming 5 times a week, usually short distances at the end of my other workouts, but trying once a week to work in a mile swim (about 70 minutes). That all plus stretching and maybe working in some yoga classes. …. Kind of adds up to a lot of time. Everytime I go to the gym time seems to just melt away and it’s several hours later by the time I leave. Though it’s one benefit of going to the gym during my lunch break at work is it forces me to keep my workout time down, but that’s why I never try doing lifting workouts during lunch.

I mentioned that I did a Krav Maga class recently, but I thought maybe I should write a whole post about my first class experience. It was a while ago now, unfortunately it takes me awhile sometimes to get around to writing up blog posts.

So a few weeks back now I did my first trial Krav Maga class. I’ve been wanting to learn Krav Maga for a while but it’s expensive so I hadn’t ever gotten around to actually doing it. So the closest Krav Maga studio to me has trial classes where you can come in and do a free class to see if you want to sign up. So I signed up for a Thursday evening class.

Before the class:

I got off work about 5pm as planned, rushed home because I still needed to dry the clothes for class. Rushed around to make sure I had shoes and water, only to realize that it was still over an hour before I needed to leave even for planning to be there early. So then I just relaxed for a bit, lost track of time, and ended up leaving later than planned in workout clothes with jeans over my workout capris, separate shoes (as required by them), and a water bottle. Put the address in my GPS and headed out.

So I got to the Krav Maga place and was still early for the class. I had signed up for the trial class online so when I walked in and heard “Erin?” at first I just thought it was someone who had seen an “Erin” sign up for the class, it took me a minute to realize the person who said my name was actually Claire, who I had gone to high school with!

After that I got a tour of the building from a staff person, then chatted with Claire a bit. A Krav Maga level 2 class was wrapping up so I watched for a little bit as they did some disarming moves. Honestly from the little I saw I was surprised that was considered level 2 moves, but I only saw the tail end of the class.

Level 1 Class:

Then the level 1 class I signed up for was going to start, and I certainly felt nervous. I set down my stuff in the back of the room, quickly retied my shoes and rushed to get lined up at the start. We all formed a line in front of the instructor, he asked if it was the first time for anyone and I raised my hand. Two other people in the class were there for the second time I guess, but also doing a trial. He asked if anyone had any injuries and I considered if I should mention my issues with my foot but I didn’t want to draw much attention to myself and it’s only really a big problem if I run, so I decided not to mention it. We did some bowing thing to the front then back of the room, then he says to make a circle of the room, and it took me a few moments of seeing what others were doing to realize we were being told to run laps of the room.

Oh.

“Only a problem if I’m running” and what do we start with? Running.

I was clearly not expecting a Krav Maga class to involve running.

I started out at the back of everyone but keeping pace, after a lap or 2 though I started falling behind, I was out of breath and my foot was killing me, but I kept pushing through as much as I could. I was being lapped by several people and definitely feeling embarrassed and out of shape. Then we added various arm movements while running. Then a weird sideways shuffle around the room which felt awkward and I was out of breath and just thinking this is clearly not for me.

After all this we are instructed to find a place around the room and I think, ok, warm up done, now we do krav maga, right?

No.

The downside of writing this so long later is that I don’t remember all of what we did. But there were ab exercises on the floor, jumping to the floor and back up, and then we did some punching at the air. It felt like just another standard fitness class all through this and I’m thinking to myself, just get through this hour long class and be done with it, this is not what I was looking for. I want to learn krav maga, if I wanted just generic fitness classes I could join a random gym closer to me and for cheaper.

Then we do some punching at air, fast paced, so still very aerobic and I’m still out of breath and struggling.

The instructor then makes a comment about how this isn’t some fitness kickboxing class, this is Krav Maga, punch like you mean to hit something. And I’m thinking in my head “is this really any different than a generic fitness kickboxing class?”

Seems though that this was just the warm up, though it was a long warm up in my opinion. I’m not used to a warm-up taking up a full quarter or longer of the class/session time.

Then we were instructed to get a pad from the corner and pair up. A woman comes to me and asks if I want to pair up with her. I was thankful she came and asked me because the “find a partner” stuff always makes me feel uncomfortable. I was feeling awkward and out of place already and asking to partner with someone for fitness endeavors brings back too many memories of being the fat kid in gym class who was always picked last.

I got the feeling that she was probably also an instructor though just taking the class at that moment. We started off then with taking turns one person holding the pad and the other punching it. I finally felt like I was doing what I came there for but was still out of breath and feeling very out of shape because of it. But it was getting fun for me finally, and the woman I was partnered with was incredibly nice and helpful. She kept giving me pointers on everything, showing me how to hold the pad for her to punch, and offering encouragement. After punches we took a water break and then did some kicks. Again, the woman I was partnered with was being helpful showing me what to do and giving advice. The instructor came around and corrected my stance for the kicks.

After kicks we put away the pads and in pairs practiced breaking away from someone trying to choke us from behind. I kept having to be told to be rougher when I was the one doing the pushing/choking from behind. I struggled a bit since my only time doing things like this was a required training at work on safety and getting out of chokes, what to do if someone tries to attack us, et cetera. But being a required work training, even faking everything I was apparently the most rough person in the class. Was hard for me to adjust to a situation were people weren’t afraid of being rough and wanted to practice with more realistic force.

We ended after this lining up again and doing the bows.

After class:

I hung around after chatting with Claire and waiting because by then I had had fun and decided I was going to sign up. I sat down with the two other new folks to go over the membership options. They were a lot less sure and had more questions for me whereas by then I was just like “let’s do this!” This is when I started coughing. At the start just a bit here and there, by the end of the meeting and sign up a lot more.

I ended up signing up for the krav only option, with a year long commitment. They also do some other classes like yoga, weight lifting, and so on, but you have to have a more expensive membership to do those. I was tempted, mainly for the weight class as it would give me a change to lift with someone in person who could check and correct my form. But it was already super expensive and already going to be a struggle to fit just krav maga classes into my schedule, so I just did that.

Of course I’ve mentioned the rest in other posts- by the time I got home my coughing was pretty severe and kept getting worse all night. By morning I was still coughing constantly and ended up calling in sick to work because I couldn’t imagine trying to talk to people when I was hacking constantly like that. Not only was I coughing though, but after a coughing spasm there would be a few seconds were I felt like I couldn’t start breathing again. Coughing kept up though it got marginally better over the weekend and so I went into the doctor and was diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma and prescribed an inhaler.

Oh, and after I got home Claire posted a video on facebook:

At first I hated how I looked, but after a bit I liked it.

I just got back now from my second class. Went fairly similar to before. People are nice and helpful. Had a bit of a panic attack for fear of not being able to breath after. And despite the inhaler I am coughing again :-\

In the clubhouse for the Fat Girls Guide to Running the focus for October is meant to be on developing new habits. Much like the social running challenge, the timing seems to fit my life fairly well.

I just started a new full time job Monday! I haven’t had a full time job in… I think 4 years. That last full time job was also my first full time job. All my other jobs have been part time. Though at times that has meant combining multiple part time jobs and being in school full time. I’d actually say that latter is a more busy schedule, but moreso there is just a different feel to it.

Of course I’m not just working full time right now, but also in school part time. And trying to juggle both of these along with outside goals with my chronic illnesses/disability. Which is a challenge and incredibly overwhelming and the truth is I’m rather concerned about attempting to do so.

This past week the juggle did not go well. Monday was my first day of work followed by my first exam in an extra political science class I decided to take… that I’m now kicking myself for not dropping because what the fuck was I thinking taking more than the necessary amount of schoolwork?

The exam did not go well. Not that I have received a grade yet, I just know it didn’t. I was so exhausted after work I could not think straight and forming coherent sentences seemed a challenge. Not a good state to be in for an exam.

Since starting this job I have not done any work on my research practicum. Also had to push back meeting with the professor I’m working with.

And I have not worked out at all this week.

My life has basically been: get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, go to sleep, repeat. And still not getting enough sleep (for me) under this schedule, leading to me being increasingly exhausted everyday.

Assuming you’ve read this far, you may be wondering- what the heck does this have to do with new habits? Possibly also, how does this make now a good time to talk about developing new habits for you?

Well, for one thing, just getting used to my full time work schedule is a new habit for me! Balancing any other habit around that is also new in that sense. Balancing all of this is a new habit. I have a lot of new habits!

So my habits I am focusing on for October?

Get used to my new work schedule

Get used to my new bed time

Start setting in school work time after work during the week

Get used to fitting in workouts around those things

Work on drinking more water again

Aside from the last, these also can be considered to be in order. I’m also trying to remind myself that everything isn’t going to happen at once. Let me get used to my work and sleep schedule first. I took this week off schoolwork due to work, that’s ok, that will get added into the mix next week. It will probably be longer for me to really get into a good habit regarding workouts among all of this.

Water is already something I’m working on though! I was drinking plenty of water and in the habit of it but started to fall out of the habit. So last weekend I decided to redownload an app that lets you track how much water you’ve drank. You have empty cups and you just tap it to fill it for each cup of water you drink. it also will record the time you clicked the cup.

I set my goal on the app for 16 cups of water/ 128 ounces a day. That being the minimum for days I don’t work out. I would aim for 24 cups or water/ 192 ounces a day on days I am working out. That number just based on what amount of water I typically feel hydrated and good drinking. Also with a 64 ounce water bottle, increments of such are easy. No workout- aim for 2 bottles worth of water. Workout- aim for 3 bottles worth of water.

Since I started using the app last weekend, Friday was actually the first day I hit my goal. Since this is a habit I only slipped up on much recently I’m not expecting it takes too long to get back into the habit and after I do I will likely delete the app. The app is just helpful as I get back into the habit of it.

I have been pretty inactive recently. Runs been cancelled due to weather a few times, but I’ve also been dealing with some depression that had me not working out so much.

Finally went out for another run yesterday morning and was going to do just another short 1 mile run. I made it 1.5 blocks running before my calves were cramping up so badly I slowed to a walk. Walked a bit further on but then turned around and headed home- fully limping by the time I was headed home.

I walked a mile to and a mile from a street fair during the evening yesterday/today and just walking felt very difficult. My walk there I don’t think I was really limping, but slow with an uneven gait. Walking around the event it got worse until I was limping, and the walk home was slow and limping. Calves and arms started cramping up, which has me wondering if my potassium is low. If not I don’t know what the hell is going on because that’s certainly not normal for me.

Of course it’s not just running, but I haven’t done a whole lot of lifting recently either. And despite not doing much of anything after my non-run yesterday morning I somehow injured my shoulder.

Since I’ve been blogging about my runs and more specifically am supposed to be blogging about my experiences running with the Fat Girls’ Guide to Running clubhouse, I felt obligated to make this post, but I really don’t have much more to say. Training has not gone well recently, and so I will be working to get back at it more often.

I also may lay off running for awhile and do more walking instead, depending how things go/how I feel.

Though if there is anything of importance to say in this post I think it’s this: this in many ways really gets to the heart of my approach to working out- thing get in the way. I am never going to be perfectly consistent, and I am not going to make that the goal. Sometimes I won’t be as active as other times, but I will not feel like because I wasn’t so active these last couple weeks that this defines how active I will be in the coming days, weeks, or months. Everytime my activity level takes a dip I will accept that for what it is and just work on getting it back up again. Everytime, without self-chastisement, without making promises to myself that it will never happen again when I know I can’t keep that promise. Things will always happen, but I will not let that discourage me from the long term focus on staying active.

I’ve been extra sick recently. I think due to a combination of factors- first up I had a lack of sleep from finals followed by lack of sleep from holidays and then lack of sleep from a family vacation, which tends to make me more ill and also more susceptible to catching things, and I think I have caught some sort of virus, which is also combined with running out of my medications and not being able to get the refilled yet which causes me to feel crappy in a number of ways. Combine all of this together, I’m pretty miserable.

I’ve also been stressing about being sick because I was supposed to take a qualifying exam today and had to not due to being sick but I was really hoping to get better in time to take it, and if not stressed about it throwing off my plans and my timeline for stuff for school, and I already am not where I should be with so many other things i don’t need to be behind on exams as well- stress, stress, stress (which really doesn’t help the being ill thing).

Monday morning I did deadlifts. I got through the main working sets and to the assistance sets (5 sets of 10 reps at a lighter weight) and was just too sick to get them in. Which technically is “allowed” with the program, but I feel like I did nothing and was feeling crappy about it.

I haven’t tried lifting or running or much of anything sense then. Mostly actually I’ve been spending all my time in bed since then.

And then I feel bad about that. Because I didn’t get as much done over finals as I wanted, and then not much over holidays, and now not much because of being so sick. And I feel like I’m just totally screwing this all up.

So I had to remind myself of what I’ve said before about this- everyone gets sick sometimes but having times when things get bad (whether it be partly catching something, or just a flare up of a chronic condition) is a more regular occurrence for me. It’s life, I have to work around it best I can. Also I know that lifting is no, cannot be, my top priority (I was just reminding myself not long ago that I’m allowed the time for it at all, that taking care of myself is a valid use of my time), sometimes other things in life will get in the way.

These things happen, and so me the important part is that I just keep moving forward. Maybe it’s at a slower pace than I want, maybe it’s a slower pace than others are at, but that doesn’t matter as much as the fact that I keep at it. So I can’t lift right now until I’m feeling a bit better. Ok. So I’m going to rest and when I feel I can do it safely I will be lifting again.

I’ve in the past let this get me down to where I feel “why even bother if I can’t stay on track?” But things going exactly as I plan or hope doesn’t really matter that much, and it’s not really a realistic goal. What is a realistic goal is doing as much as I can and keeping at it.

So onto cycle 2 my weights still seems so much lower than I feel they should be. So trying to remind myself that they will keep getting heavier each cycle, so I’m moving in the right direction. And it means I can focus more on form.

Still feel frustrated though when I know I could be going heavier on certain lifts though.

Still no fractional plates though, so I have to round everything to the closest 5lbs. It’s really only OHP that this is a big issue with since it’s my lightest lift.

Just finished my deload week. Which ended up being basically a whole week off while I worked on finals and then one workout with all 4 lifts at deload weights.

One thing that stands out to me in training is how much lifting makes me aware of my eating and my need to eat better- and eat. The day I did my deload workout all I’d eaten all day were some veggies and wine at a holiday lunch get together. Not a lot of food period, and no protein. And I could feel it, because even lifting light weights was a struggle.

I don’t know how other folks can lift fasted (other than the obvious different people are different). I actually am working on going back to intermittent fasting- I tried it on purpose years ago, then decided it wasn’t for me, then last year realized I was essentially doing it without trying just due to my schedule. I’m not a morning person so on days I worked and had class most of the time I would wake up (so there is however many hours of not eating while I was sleeping), go to work with no breakfast, be busy at work and don’t eat, then go straight to class, then come home and eat dinner- by which time it would typically be 24 hrs or longer since I’d eaten last. After I left my job it stopped being just natural for my routine though. I’m also getting to were I’m extremely hungry if I go awhile without eating which bugs me. Aside from benefits of fasting for short periods, I just like not feeling hungry if I go without eating for a bit because I’m busy! So I’m starting with shorter fasts for now, and going to work my back to doing fasts that are 24 hrs or longer again. But I need to plan fasts around lifting days. I can do other stuff fasted- I suck too much at running to know if it changes my performance but I can run fasted, but lifting? I can feel such a massive difference when I don’t eat, don’t eat enough, or eat the wrong stuff (high carb, no protein).

Anyways, hope this cycle goes well. Looking forward to the weights getting much more challenging than they are right now.

So I finished the my first time doing “wave a”, ie the first week, of 5/3/1. Took me a week and a half instead of a week though, because life happens.

I’m looking forward to the next week with higher % lifts.

I’ve still yet to figure out fractional issues so I’m still rounding everything to the nearest 5lbs.

So far I am still loving being able to focus a bit more on upper body than I was before.

Speaking of which, look! I almost look like I have arm muscles! (was actually trying to get a photo of my workout outfit).

This is the reason I started doing 5/3/1 and I like it. I definitely feel like I’ve gotten a better upper body workout this past week and a half than I had been getting trying to follow stronglifts.

I also like the flexibility of the assistance work, since it’s optional. I have yet to do a “jack shit” workout- never done only the main lifts. But my squats workout was a short one for me. I was exhausted and did the main lifts, 5 sets of 10 at 40% for squats, and then 5 sets of 10 hip thrusts with the bar only. Which is a short workout for me, lol.

But it’s nice that if I have the time and energy I can add in all kinds of extra stuff. And if I don’t, the main part is short and quick. So I’m liking that.

So I mentioned recently that I don’t really talk a lot about my training and workouts here except a few mentions of my programs.

But maybe I should. And by “should”, I mean it’s my blog, so why the heck not?

So on that topic:

I mentioned recently switching to 5/3/1 from Stronglifts.

For those not familiar let me start with a brief overview of how each program works. I’ll throw this in a different color so that you can easily skip past this if you already know about these prorams.

Stronglifts has two workouts, A and B, and 5 lifts. The lifts used in Stronglifts are the barbell squat, bench press, barbell row, overhead press, and deadlift. These are arranged into two workouts:

Workout A:

Squat

Bench Press

Barbell Row

Workout B:

Squat

Overhead Press

Deadlift

For each of these you do 5 working sets of 5 reps, each time you successfully do your 5×5 you add 5lbs to the weight you life nextime. Along with the 5 working sets they recommend a number or warmup sets. I was doing about 4 warmup sets for squats and then 2 warm up sets for the others usually. So it’s more than 5 sets if you count warmups. And stronglifts recommends doing these 3 times a week alternating A and B.

As you can see with stronglifts, you would be increasing weight very fast if you don’t stall at any weight.
As I mentioned, I decided to switch to 5/3/1/ because I was always exhausted after all those squats and was not progressing in any other lifts anymore.

5/3/1 has 4 workouts focusing on 4 lifts. The 4 lifts are the barbell squat, bench press, deadlift, and overhead press. So 5/3/1 does not include the barbell row as a primary lift. Each of the 4 workouts then is focused on one and only 1 primary lift.

Using this website as a guide for each lift you progress through 4 “waves”. For each it recommend 3 warmup sets. 40% x5reps, 50%x 5 reps, 60%x 3 reps.

So they weight is all based on percent of your 1 rep max. The website I linked has a calculation to estimate your 1 rep max if you’ve never tried to max out for 1 rep on a lift.

But wait! Not that simple! You are actually supposed to consider 90% of that to be your 1 rep max for purposes of the program. So you calculate a 1 rep max, then take 90% of that, then take whichever percentage of that.

Oh, and after you complete the 4 waves you then add 5lbs for upper-body and 10lbs for lower body to your 1RM to repeat the 4 waves based on that

In addition to the 1 lift each workout, you can do some optional assistance work after.

As you can see 5/3/1 is not really as simple as stronglifts in terms of simplicity of the set up.

As I already mentioned the main reason I’m switching is because I like being able to focus on one primary lift each workout and not being exhausted from squats before all my upper body lifts.

So having just started with 5/3/1 here are some of my thoughts:

1. It’s more complicated!

So I’ve read around several different sites explaining 5/3/1, I still f-ed up on my understanding of it the first workout.

2. It feels so much lighter and easier!

For the main lifts I’m doing fewer sets and lighter weights than I was used to with strong lifts. Which I’m trying to trust the prescribed progression of this and not feel like I’m just always going backward. I do still wonder if I should just use my actual calculated 1 rep max instead of taking 90% of it. I read that 90% was in part to counterbalance people who would overestimate their one rep max by using a previous max when they aren’t currently lifting that heavy, and people using really bad form to get their max weight. My numbers are either a 1 rep max I’ve done recently or calculated from recent weights I’ve done at higher reps.

And with 5/3/1 you are changing your weight each set and only doing 3 working sets.

3. Progress is prescribed at a lower rate.

And I think part of this is that my weights are way lower than what seems the expectation of where folks start 5/3/1 at. so adding 5 or 10lbs to the 1 RM and then calculating a percent of that seems a small increase compared to adding 5lbs (or 10 for deadlift) each time to the weight you lift. And with my 1RM numbers being small already. Plus this is a slight problem in that I don’t have fractional plates, so right now the smallest weight increase I can do is 5lbs (or I guess 2.5lb if I had an imbalanced bar). And why the heck are fractonal plates so friggin expensive? Amazon has a set totaling 5 lbs (set of 1/4 lb, 1/2 lb, 3/4 lb and 1 lb) for $60. $60 for 5 lbs? Am I the only one who thinks that sounds completely ridiculous? So right now I’m trying to think of another way I can add small amounts of weight to my bar that don’t involve spending $60 for 5 measly lbs.

4. I’m doing more assistance work than seems recommended.

So reading around I see a lot of folks saying no more than 1-2 assistance exercises per workout.

I did 5 with my first, which was bench- also I’m out of order because I did 5×5 squats the day before I switched so I’m doing bench, deadlift, ohp, squat instead of squat, bench, deadlift, ohp.

I planned for 4 with deadlifts but stopped after 3.

I keep seeing that the important part is that assistance work doesn’t take away from the main lift. So my feeling is, if all my assistance work is after the main lift, it shouldn’t be making a different to my main lift. Basically how I’ve been planning it is start with major lift, the assistance work in prioritized in order, so whenever I get exhausted and can’t do more (or run out of time) I stop.

Also right now some of my “assistance work” is just extra stuff I want to throw in, more than stuff they recommend. Like I want to keep doing barbell rows so now I am calling that “assistance work”. I also love hip thrusts for more glute work, so I’m going to call that “assistance work”. So I’m kind of just making stuff up and doing whatever for that.

5. I’m doing low weight, high rep and it feels so weird.

So another recommendation for assistance work is “big and boring”. doing 5 sets of 10 reps at a low weight. This is mostly recommended for use with the main lift. So after the prescribed sets, reps, and weights for the main lift, I then aim to do 5 sets of 10 reps at 40% weight. Since I didn’t really know what to do for weight, reps, and sets for the other assistance work, I’ve decided to adopt this for all the assistance work for now.

It feels really weird doing high rep, low weight :-\

Well, technically it says to increase this weight percentage overtime too to whatever works out as the max you can do for 8-10 rep. Still lower weight and higher rep than I’m used to though.

Which I may then be able to fit less assistance work once I’m doing more weights. Also less with lower body because that always takes more out of me than upper body lifts- which also maybe will change once I get my weights higher with upper body.

So I had been doing or trying to do stronglifts. Decided today that I need to change to a different program.

After squats I’m exhausted and I’m not making progress on anything else and I know part of that is because by the time I get into anything else I’m totally exhausted from my squats.

Photo between sets of my workout this morning.

So I think I am going to try switching over to 5/3/1 I’ve looked into this before and I think right now it would be good as it focuses on 1 major lift per workout and then whatever assistance work one wants to add as well, but never focusing on more than 1 major lift at a time. I also hope this will give me the ability to focus more effectively on upper body since it will give me days when I am doing just a main upper body lift (Bench or OHP) combined with upper body assistance work. Which overall then would mean doing even more upper body work as well, which I think I need.

Anyways, I don’t really talk tons about my training here but thought I’d throw a post out about this planned change.

I’m fairly early on but so far love it and would definitely recommend it. So far I am liking having specific guidelines for increasing weights. And just used the app for the first time and like the timer for rests between sets.

This post really though is mainly for me, I realized I should keep track of my starting point so I can see better how far I’ve come with it later on, and figured I would post here to help me keep track and let others in on my eventual progress as well!